Past, Present and Future: Them: "Here Comes The Night"

Once again we are with a man who is alone, looking out the window. There is someone he is thinking of, and there she is...

...he used to try to interest her in things, please her as best he could; movies, cafes, just hanging around his place listening to jazz and blues sides. But for whatever reason, maybe he was fooling himself, maybe she was fooling him, it ended. He knows that she left him for another guy, one who maybe dressed a bit sharper or had a different accent - is she really that superficial? Then he checks himself, wonders if he isn't just as superficial, in his ways. Would he have wanted her had she worn a bandeau or had green eyes? He can't move away from the window, knowing it is wrong but unable to stop. He won't do anything, as he watches them go along, watches them go in and turn the light on; it is all too vivid and he cannot stop now, but it is as if he is watching himself. Another version of himself, veritably a doppelganger, not in looks but in results. She is swinging from man to man as if she were at a dance and there is nothing that can be done about it. All this time the night encroaches, he is alone, things are getting darker and darker...all the time he veers between the emptiness of the night and the near-puppet-like show he is watching, too hapless and just plain down to do much of anything but maybe drink and listen to the blues...


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This is the first time this blog has gone to Northern Ireland, Belfast in particular, and politics aside (or perhaps...not), there is a point to the shifts in the song from the dreaded and inevitable night and the girl and her guy, going about their affair - it can be said that any area with tensions will create great music, not that anyone really wants tensions, of course. Van Morrison grew up in a house full of music courtesy of his father's varied record collection of country, blues, jazz and folk and was playing guitar from 11, saxophone a few years later and he started playing in bands as soon as anyone would have him. But above all this is his voice; here he brings in the whole scope of jealousy, doubt, resentment and acceptance. He blows hot and cool, is self-reflective, bitchy and oddly warm. Sung by someone else this could be ho-hum; however Them* make it a full picture even though we are there with the man as he watches, keeps watching even though he shouldn't. Unlike other songs, he does not wish he could be with her still, but then why does he watch if she did him wrong? This is what the night cannot answer, and he cannot answer himself, either. The song is a big illustrated question mark. There is no way out of this, besides the growing darkness...

The b-side to this is a rough blues called "All For Myself" (written by Morrison; "Here Comes The Night" is by Bert Berns). It is the answer to the a-side, or maybe the true feelings he has and knows he shouldn't have, despite himself. I mention it as I had assumed (wrongly) that "Gloria" was the b-side here, a song that is the direct opposite of "Here Comes The Night" - there he sits and anticipates her arrival, her every action, before they meet; but he is in much the same place, and the anticipation is just as exciting as her being with him, maybe even more so. He is saved in this song by her presence, just as here he is somehow lost, unable to see anything in the darkness besides her. I will mention it anyway as it is Morrison's gift to garage bands everywhere, and eventually would be turned on its head by this woman, who in '65 is still a fan and not yet a performer.

*"Them" are mostly studio musicians here, including a young Jimmy Page on guitar.